Kate Hawkesby: If you believe the polls, a lot of people are happy with the status quo

With all this pre-Budget talk I’m just not sure how invested we are in it - how much attention we’re paying it. I mean we should be. We’ve never been fiscally in such dire straits, we are laden down with debt, inflation is rampant, outlooks and optimism levels do not look flash. So what the Government and the opposition want to do with our money should be something we’re laser focused on. Luxon said a couple of things yesterday at the Auckland Business Chamber which resonated with me – one that we tend to confuse activity with achievement in this country. That if people are busy, we think they’re being productive or doing something, when many times, particularly in the public sector, this isn’t true. They’re pushing paper, but productivity outcomes don’t match. There are more people doing more ‘stuff’ but what have we got to show for it? We have a government who has never spent more money, yet what have they got to show for it? What infrastructure project have they started - and finished? How many sectors have been transformed for the better? What do we have to show for all the spending? More consultants? Yes. More advertising? Yes, more branding and rebranding – yes - but what tangible better outcomes have we seen for us the taxpayer? I mean take mental health, for example. Lots of words, promises, and numbers bandied about on how they were going to fix that. In reality, what’s happened? Nothing, money unspent, the sector still on its knees, outcomes no better for those involved. Luxon mentioned speaking with a nurse and a teacher – both in their 20’s, saving to buy a house, the rent had just gone up by $50 that week, they were looking at their outgoings compared to their income and they told him they’d actually started looking at jobs in Australia because they didn’t feel they could get ahead in New Zealand. And that’s a real travesty. If we’re seen as such an expensive place to live, that New Zealand is such a prohibitively costly existence for young people that they’re actually planning a future elsewhere, then we’re doing it all wrong. We have to do better for our kids and their futures and the future of this country. And that’s the bit that worries me – the malaise that’s wafted over this country – during Covid – and is still not lifting. The pandering to the lowest common denominator, the lack of targets, as Luxon pointed out which have been so debilitating for this country on every metric – health, crime, education, we seem to have decided that just scraping the barrel is good enough. There’s a collective lack of ambition, lack of desire to be better or want for more. Where’s our aspiration gone? Where is that 'can do' spirit that our grandparents had? I worry we’ve given up, and we’re happy to just plod along and as David Seymour put it, basically just be a big Fiji. The polls are tight – which means, if you believe them, there are a lot of people in this country happy with status quo. That worries me.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.